The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Citi Foundation have joined hands to empower and invest in youth, enabling them to master leadership, social innovation, and entrepreneurship. 
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Being the largest youth-led social entrepreneurship movement, the Youth Co:Lab project, which was co-created in 2017, established partnerships with more than 100 key ecosystem players, including Vietnam.
The project works to support young entrepreneurs, particularly young women and marginalized youth, by connecting them with businesses, incubators, accelerators, and financing mechanisms to develop their ideas into viable business models for sustainable social impact.
Over the last two years, Youth Co:Lab has been implemented in 20 countries, including Vietnam, across the Asia-Pacific region with national dialogues, regional summits, and social innovation challenges reaching over 48,000 participants.
The initiative has benefitted over 2,500 young social entrepreneurs and helped launch or improve nearly 500 social enterprises, a report by the UNDP showed.
The second Asia Pacific Youth Co:Lab Summit in Hanoi ended on April 5, brings together over 500 delegates, including hundreds of youth, partners, and government officials from 20 countries.
The flagship event is aimed to exchange ideas, knowledge and experiences, and to influence policy initiatives on youth entrepreneurship and social innovation.
From left: UNDP Deputy Regional Director for Asia & the Pacific Valerie Cliff; President of the Citi Foundation and Head of Corporate Citizenship at Citi Brandee McHale; Resident Representative a.i., UNDP Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen. Photo: UNDP Vietnam
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Speaking at the event, Valerie Cliff emphasized the crucial role of youth, saying that young people really do hold the key to social change. She noted that the first generation of Youth Co:Lab social entrepreneurs flourish and carry their own initiatives forward, according to UNDP.
“This is how we can align the grit and determination of young change makers to meet the ambition of the SDGs. Our mandate at Youth Co:Lab is to play the role of an integrator and strengthen the ecosystem connecting young people with governments and businesses to scale impact,” she stressed.
Brandee McHale, president of the Citi Foundation noted that “Youth Co:Lab’s approach of listening to the perspectives and ideas of young people, and empowering them to drive business solutions that address our world’s most pressing issues is how real change happens.”
Vice Minister of Science and Technology Tran Van Tung said that the summit will enable an exchange of ideas and help further developing the start-ups, through incubation, innovation, expanding connections and international cooperation.
Vietnam’s startup ecosystem
Techinasia reported that the number of startups in Vietnam hit 1,500 in 2017. The ratio out of the population is higher than in Indonesia (2,100), in China (2,300), and in India (7,500).
Techinasia quoted Khoi Nguyen, founder and CEO of WeFit, as saying that everyone is talking about startups now, and a lot of people have started something in the past year. The government is also showing some support by changing the laws, hosting some events, and opening some accelerators.
According to Reuters, the majority of Vietnam’s startups work in e-commerce and e-commerce-relating fields.
Local experts said that the country’s startup ecosystem must be more open and willing to improve to have more hi-tech businesses.
